Readers worry proposed pipeline could be harmful

March 21, 2014|Lauren Ritchie, COMMENTARY

Say the words "Spectra Energy" and watch the email inbox light up.

Spectra is the company that is partnering with Florida Power & Light to build a natural-gas pipeline through three states, including Florida and parts of Lake, Sumter, Marion, Polk and Osceola counties.

The company is well known for building pipelines, and a spokesman said last week that it has a better safety record for onshore pipelines than does its competitors.

Folks who live around Spectra's projects don't feel the same way. Take Mike Benard, a New York resident whose property in Pennsylvania was taken by Spectra in an eminent-domain proceeding to build a 12-billion-cubic-foot underground reservoir for natural gas on 43 acres, complete with a 5,000-horsepower compressor station and 13 injection and withdrawal wells.

Benard runs an operation that used to be called Spectra Energy Watch but now has expanded and can be found at shalepropertyrights.com.

His biggest quarrel with the company is that, backed by the federal government, Spectra runs over the rights of property owners. That's an ages-old argument against eminent domain that Benard won't be winning. Another of his complaints is that the company likes to call its neighbors "stakeholders" but treats them like the enemy.

"Spectra Energy is a company that will not answer questions (especially from its 'stakeholders'), and it will not talk about its performance record, including federal and state fines," Benard wrote in an email. "If communities and local governments want to know what to expect from Spectra Energy, ask folks who live with its facilities today."

Benard cited an incident last March at the Steckman Ridge storage facility in which smoke was coming from a compression station and the local fire department responded. Residents, sitting atop an underground potential bomb, were rightly nervous. A spokesman for the company said there was no smoke, no incident and nothing was released.

Six days later, a headline in the Bedford (Pa.) Gazette declared, "Spectra backtracks on gas incident" and the story went on to detail how a pressure-release valve tripped, sending methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, into the air.

Benard said his organization has been talking with people who live along the 473-mile route of the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, which accounts for about half the miles of pipeline that Spectra currently is trying to get approved by the federal government.

Slowly, folks in this area are beginning to realize that a pipeline is being proposed, and they could end up living nearby.

One who is a jump ahead on the issue is Gertrude Dickinson, a Lake Panasoffkee resident whose property is adjacent to the Half Moon Wildlife Management Area.

Dickinson has been fighting the pipeline both for personal health reasons and because she fears it could damage the environment.

The 83-year-old retiree who taught for 43 years at inner-city schools in Miami, said she suffers from a condition called auditory recruitment in which normal sounds are heard many times louder than they are heard by normal ears. The effect, Dickinson said, sets her nerves on edge and drives her blood pressure to unsafe levels. She dreads what will happen if the pipeline is installed near her property.

She said the pipeline route (see bit.ly/1fHVtXx) runs directly through the Half Moon area, where rangers ignite controlled burns once a year.

"A leak would be disastrous to the wildlife area and all of those in the Rutland Ranch development that is located directly adjacent to Half Moon," Dickinson wrote in an email.

Yeow! Controlled burns over top of a buried natural gas pipeline. Gee, nothing could go wrong there, could it?

Natural gas may be among the best fossil fuels when it comes to preserving the environment, but that doesn't mean companies should get an automatic pass on where and how to build a pipeline. But they will — unless the public gets involved.

The next public meeting on this issue is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Citrus Tower in Clermont.

Lritchie@tribune.com. Lauren invites you to send her a friend request on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/laurenonlake.